To the Beat of Our Noisy Hearts
by narcissmy
Summary: Benny and Maureen's relationship has always been tumultuous. But the hostility presented in RENT has grown from situations far more complicated than a simple argument.
1. She Bets On Long Shots

**Title:** She Bets On Long Shots (She Wants What They've Got)

**Pairing:** Maureen/Benny  
**Rating:** M – mostly for sexual situations, but illegal drug use, too.

**Author:** Narcissmy

**Disclaimer:** R.I.P Mr Larson – you'll never be forgotten so long as I have grandbabies. Title lyrics to Mr. Matt Nathanson

**A/N: **This isn't m quite yet, but it gets there =] There's also gonna be a bit of Maureen/Alison at a later date, so...stay tuned?

The apartment was filled with random strangers, closest friends and very few family members. The music was loud and creeping from an ancient looking set of speakers balanced precariously on the table. The singing was louder, kindly provided by Collins, who seemed to know the words to every single song ever made. Ever.

But the loudest thing of all for Maureen Johnson was the feeling of loneliness beating in her ears with every sluggish heartbeat.

Mark was sleeping.

It was a minute to New Year, and Mark was sleeping.

Roger and April were curled around each other in a position which suggested that they didn't really want to be with other people. His hand was smoothing the skin at the base of her back, and they were kissing each other frantically. Sucking the high from each other's pores as his mouth travelled a little lower down her jaw. Their heartbeats were accelerated, skipping over each other and the heroin like lovers in the sheets.

Collins couldn't give a shit that he didn't have a significant other. He'd drowned the knowledge of Aids in copious amounts of vodka and was entertaining his crowd of adoring fans with his soulful voice and the pull of his personality. His heartbeat was content and full, racing through his veins and arteries with the euphoria of blow. Maureen couldn't look at him for too long because it made her chest ache and hollow, as if she was yearning for hope to bury beneath her ribcage. She was losing hope lately. Maybe if she stuffed it behind her sternum it would stop everyone bursting her bubble.

She was a flirt, Mark said. She was too friendly, Mark said. She got too drunk, Mark said.

Maureen was tired. She used to look at him and see a face full of intelligence, of dreams that weren't misplaced. Of an ambition that told her he'd get out of this place – out of Alphabet city – and make something out of what he had; which was raw talent. They were fizzling out. Or Mark was clinging on hopefully, and Maureen was growing bored. Gone were the days of the honeymoon period, where he had been so interested in filming _her_. Gone were the stolen moments of affection, heated affairs in public. The excitement had died. He was living for the future, forgetting the past, and bypassing the present in the process. And that wasn't Maureen.

In the beginning, when he had filmed her everyday as she made her journey from the brief job she had held as a waitress at the Life café to her home, he had been witty. He had stared at her pouty lips a little too long. Been so fascinated by the sway of her hips and her sassy rejection of him, even as she smiled that toothy smile of hers and winked. Maybe next time, Mark. He had called her Lolita for the first week of knowing her, because she had refused to give him her name. She had eventually spelled it out in the condensation of the Life Café windows, as he stood outside on the snow covered sidewalk in his stupid scarf, because he couldn't afford to come in and buy anything.

Now, she wasn't even sure he remembered she was here, half the time, let alone what her name was. How much he had wanted her in the beginning. And maybe that was the problem, for Maureen. She played a good game of cat and mouse. She was _always_ the one calling the shots. And then when she gave herself to the person who had pursued her for so long, they became bored. She gave too much of herself.

Even now, when she could hear him snoring as she neared the bedroom door. Even when he had deserted her on a night that was meant to be celebrated with your nearest and dearest, she scooted closer to the bed to press a kiss to his sleep slackened mouth. She made it into the living room for the final countdown, and when they'd all sang Auld Lang Syne and given the required kisses, she retired to the stoop. Collins looked so happy, raising his glass and leading the chorus. But he wore his blood cells on his sleeve, and she saw the fear. She could smell it. So she left before she started sobbing like she did when she initially got the news. The biting cold of the stoop was a harsh slap in the face, shocking the excess moisture pooling in her eyes back into her tear ducts. Skin-tight leather made her ass look great, but she was fucking freezing.

She liked it. It was a good kind of cold, and though her fingers were numb and her breath made just as much impression on the air as her cigarette smoke, she couldn't go back inside. She felt isolated in her abandonment, and her whole body ached with the facade of her relationship. Every muscle was sore with falsities.

The stoop shifted slightly, and she thought for a moment that she had finally reached the stage of inebriation where she was hallucinating. She couldn't remember if she had participated in ingesting any of the various substances being passed around, so she didn't pay much attention. Her memory was hopeless at the best of times.

It was Benny. He took one of her cigarettes from the packet without being offered. He leant against the wall of the building to smoke it, the smoke curling up around his perfectly arrogant lips.

She began to reapply her lipstick.

"I guess you finally lost Shirley Temple."

"_Alison_ is inside." He answered, but she didn't miss the way his eyes skirted to her mouth. She widened her eyes and popped her lips for effect.

"_Alison_ is passed out behind the sofa. I'm surprised her darling daddy dearest hasn't called her to tell her curfew was at half past seven."

Maureen snorted a little at her own humour. She was coarse, but she was attractive in the sense she didn't try to hide it. Growing up with male relatives had taught her that elegance was a pretence. Benny was always horrible to her, but she thought that somewhere in that fat, pompous skull of his there was a flicker of respect for her.

"Oh yeah, and where's _your_ other half Mo? At least mine _passed out_ instead of willingly crashing." He rolled his eyes. Benny and Mark were on tense terms at the moment. Roger was acting as peace maker, but Maureen was counting down the days until Benny married his perfect little princess Muffy and fucked off to Richland where everybody drove a Land Rover and gave their kids cruel names.

"He's there for me when I need him. When your dad died and you got wasted, I was wiping your snot off your face whilst Ali-no-fun-son was getting her nails done."

"Well she's doing something better than you. I'm awake, and Mark is sleeping. He's that bored. Maybe he'll lose interest and fuck Roger, if he's not doing that already."

Benny threw the cigarette at her feet. They always did this. Banter always became nasty. Maureen had never been able to pinpoint why they got on so infamously, but it was the first time her pulse had raised all evening. Her heartbeat skipped up against her ribcage. She wanted to slap him.

So she did. And she could bet it hurt. If his face was as painfully cold as her fingers then it would smart. One minute she was in front of him, and the next his hands were holding her face as he held her against the brick wall, and suddenly her breath was caught in _his_ throat.

His lips were warm and his tongue was ruthless. She felt like her whole mouth was on fire with the force of him, and he was too close and too passionate. Too inconsiderate for a lover used to Mark. Pliant Mark, who tried to be adventurous but never quite got there. His hands were on her ass without invitation, and even though every synapse in her brain fired to tell her that this was so wrong when she could still taste Mark on her lips, her body keened towards him and her tongue pushed furiously back. He was warm and solid, and she was damned if she'd come up for air first. She'd kiss till she was unconscious rather than admit defeat. When he was done, he rubbed his calloused thumb across her lips, the harsh quality to his work-hardened skin a stark reminder of why he didn't fit in with Alison's world. The remainder of her lipstick smeared across her pale skin and he drew his tongue against the surface of her mouth, horizontally, as if sealing himself inside her mouth.

Her eyes burned, a multitude of question marks framing her irises. He shrugged and laughed, and then he was gone.

And it was just Maureen and the vapour of her breath once more. Loneliness.

This time, of course, her heart thudded with a keen enthusiasm.


	2. Memory's Not Life, And It's Not Love

**Title:** Memory's not life, and it's not love.

**Pairing:** Maureen/Benny

**Rating:** M – mostly for sexual situations, but illegal drug use, too.

**Author:** Narcissmy

**Disclaimer:** Mr Larson, and the title to The Cure.

**A/N: **So it's been an absolute age since I updated this. I've got a bunch of parts all pre written and sitting pretty in my computer documents. I've been waiting for more reviews, if I'm honest. But I'd sooner post the rest of this and see it through than let it go to waste so for anyone who reads, thank you very much. If you decide to review, that would quite honestly make my day too!

Collins was sprawled on the sofa, snoring loudly. Roger and April were hidden in the bed behind the partitions that made up Roger's 'bedroom'. Mark was restless in his dreams, but ultimately still asleep. Maureen was awake, and wandering around the kitchenette in her underwear and a silk robe. She rummaged around in the fridge noiselessly, adept at stealing things from people. The pickings were sparse, but there was orange juice which she poured into a glass left on the sideboard. When she brought it to her lips, there was a trace of vodka in it, and she smiled against the rim.

She heard the creaking of floorboards to her right, and she waited for Alison to emerge. Maureen was entirely shocked she had managed to stay the night, and expected an early awakening so the pretty little rich girl could run away as soon as possible.

Last night, she had looked in on them. She couldn't help it. By the time she had re-entered the flat, most of the guests had left. The only one left in the living room was Collins, who she'd kissed on the cheek and covered with a blanket that had been shucked onto the floor. She could hear sex sounds coming from April and Roger's room, so she shied away from their partition. Horny she may be, but she was not a voyeur.

There was silence from Benny's 'room'. Apart from the sound of the heavy breathing a person achieves in sleep, there was no sound. No restless movement. Just content slumber.

In that moment, she had been so entirely jealous of Alison that she thought her insides were going to combust. Alison did not dress like Maureen, did not talk like Maureen and definitely did not act like Maureen. She was practically her exact opposite. Maureen hated how conservative she was, how the thumb print was so clearly visible between her perfectly shaped blonde eyebrows. Maureen had never been insecure about her life or her actions, but in that moment, she'd began to wonder if she was getting the full package from the path she had chosen to follow.

When the scene caught her eye, Benny was curled around the uptown princess. She was the little spoon. One of his hands stroked across her forehead, and the other held her hand across her lower abdomen. His skin colour was in stark contrast with her pale "I always wear a sunhat" complexion. Benny and Alison themselves contrasted. But their expressions, peaceful and ultimately unburdened, were exactly alike. They held each other. Maureen herself had slept like that with Mark, but this was...different somehow. Benny and Alison didn't look like they were clinging to each other to stay afloat. There was a simplicity, and an intimacy, without any overwhelming emotion. The outsider had yet to decide whether this was a good thing or not. On the plus side, Benny probably loved her. He'd give her pretty babies, and remember all their anniversaries and get her the right present with their platinum credit card. She'd keep herself trim even after their 2.5 children and make sure the picket fence was always pristine white. They would never suffocate each other, because they couldn't. There was no passion.

Maureen lived for the passion, which was why she was so reluctant to admit that hers had fizzled out.

She had slept with Collins, curled up against his side, hugging him to her because that man was always warm. He had smelled like whiskey and the life of the party.

Bizarrely, when she had woken, there was no sense of guilt to her addled mind. She had yet to work out what had taken place on the fire escape last night, between her and Benny. She wasn't sure it was a kiss, so much as a drunken attack of lips. At worst it was a moment of actual attraction. At best it was a New Year's kiss between friends fuelled by their chosen poisons.

The body that emerged was Benny. He had sleep painted into his expression and his lips were chapped, not smooth like they had been last night. She was rummaging in the lowest cupboard when he opened the fridge door, swigging out of the orange juice carton with no regard for whoever had to sample it after.

It was testament to the confusion in her mind that she didn't smack him or call him a pig. She had seen what a smack had got her last night, and she wasn't about to test them both again. Even if the thought of his backwash was mildly disgusting.

He pulled some cereal out of the cupboard, eating it dry. The indifference on his face, accompanied by the loud, obnoxious crunching of the arid cereal scraped across her last nerve. It forced the words out of her traitorous mouth before she had time to acknowledge that she was providing him another victory to gloat over.

"Are you going to tell her?"

Benny swallowed thickly, as if he was digesting her statement.

"No." The statement was resolute. Guiltless. He fixed her with his annoyingly perceptive stare, as if he already knew the answer before he posed the question. "Are _you_ going to tell her?"

Ah just like Benny to have no regard for Mark's feelings, whatsoever. Simply the saving of his own ass, once again.

"Why would I? It didn't mean anything. We were drunk." Despite the fact she wanted to add a "right?" onto the end of that sentence, she managed to refrain so it gave her some semblance of control. Convinced her there was still some of her assertive nature left. It felt more like she was trying to reassure herself. Her words rushed to get out of her mouth, stopping too abruptly at her teeth and crashing into each other in a domino effect. She was too eager to get them out into the open. To throw it out there that she was still Maureen Johnson, and she wasn't about to be bowled over by his shitty mind games.

His broad shoulders shifted as he chuckled under his breath, and she hated the way they were speaking in hushed tones. It seemed contradictory, for them to talk about this almost unashamedly, but to keep their voices low.

"What?" She asked, fingers nervously playing with the ties on her dressing gown, looking up at him with anger dancing and tightening in her jaw.

He placed two fingers on her chin, drawing her face up to look him in the eyes. She met his gaze defiantly.

"Not everyone's going to fall in love you with you, sweetheart."

Maureen's jaw slackened with disgust, and she just resisted the urge to spit in his face. She was proving that she was above that. But she promised, sub-consciously, that she'd do it one day when he became even more of a self-assured prick.

And suddenly, it didn't matter whether Mark was growing disinterested, because one thing Maureen Johnson was always good at doing was reigniting a spark.

It was time to fuck out her frustrations.

* * *

It was January the 2nd. New Years day had passed by unremarkably. Maureen had spent the majority of her time at Collins' apartment, helping him unpack his things. He had agreed to stay a while, so that the hospital could continue running tests. It wasn't as if they could tell him he didn't have it now, but he needed a place of residence in order to be entitled to prescriptions. Maureen had been pissed that Roger and Mark hadn't offered for him to move back in with them, but when she thought about it, it was more than cramped there already. There were too many big egos in one place.

She had been reaching down for the first of very few cardboard boxes (Collins had always been a nomad, really,) when Collins stopped her and led her to the threadbare sofa instead. He had that serious look on his face, and for a split second she thought he was going to tell her that he was dying. Then she remembered essentially, he'd already done that, so she waited like a little girl outside the head master's office, shuffling her feet and playing with the rings adorning her pale fingers.

"You and Benny, Maureen. Really?"

Maureen shrugged.

"What about it? Stop doing the dad eyes."

Collins had perfected the dad eyes years ago. He became very intense, and his brow got all wrinkled and his lips thin. Maureen hated it because it was an exact take off of her father's expression. Collins had grown up with her, and seen her father give her so many of these looks throughout her adolescence. Mostly for mischief she had got up to _with him_. It had started off as a joke, but now she thought he did it as an unconscious reaction to prod her towards feeling guilty.

"Tell me I have no reason to be doing the dad eyes."

She took a deep breath.  
"You have no reason to –"

"Bullshit." He clarified, leaning back against the sofa, and smirking at her.

"You're bright red. What happened to you Mo? You used to be able to look your dad in the eye blind drunk and tell him you didn't fill the whiskey bottle up with apple juice."

Maureen felt flustered. She had the best poker face of anyone she knew, but when it came to Collins, she couldn't hide things from him. She had never had to. But Collins was friends with Mark and Benny too. He was also ridiculously nice to Alison. She had been jealous when they had first been introduced to her, because Collins had been so welcoming. Then she had reasoned that Collins wasn't a bitch to new people like she was (She didn't really like change unless she instigated it). In fact, Collins wasn't a bitch at all. He was just perceptive and incredibly good at picking up on people's moods.

"You've been pouting around all day. "

"There's nothing going on." She stated simply, shrugging her shoulders. "It was a moment of madness."

"Are you going to tell Mark?"

"God no. Why would I? It didn't mean anything." She was picking at a loose thread to the left of her leg, hoping maybe it'd unravel the whole settee and they would just fall through the floor.

"Damn girl, don't do that to my sofa. It's bad enough as it is." He said, slapping at her hand. She smirked slightly, grateful for his insistence that kept the mood of this conversation teetering between serious and playful. "It meant nothing?"

"Exactly. It meant nothing." She met his gaze.

He shook his head.

"I believe you. It meant nothing. But you might want to tell your face that."


End file.
